


Two Things to Live For

by Deannie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-30
Updated: 2006-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everything seems lost, what can you live for?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Things to Live For

For the first week, he barely moved. He didn't think, he didn't mourn, he didn't love... he very nearly didn't breathe. He hated, but there was little point to hating something you couldn't change. He heard every hollow word of condolence, watched every useless attempt at comfort, and he sat. And he tried not to remember that one night.  


For the next two years, he learned. All there was to know about everything that was out there. Spells and hexes and curses and techniques and tools and weapons. He had two things to live for now--once it had been three, but the third was beyond help and he couldn't think of her without losing it. And he couldn't lose it, so he didn't think. He lived for two things, and soldiered on.  


For the next twenty years, he hunted. He killed everything there was to kill--many things he shouldn't have been able to manage. But when you didn't care whether you lived or died, it was easier to give a kill your all. And when you had just two things to live for, you could pretend to be careful even when you weren't.  


He wrote it all down, just the way he'd learned. He didn't think about who had taught him by example, because, again, he couldn't lose it. His journal became full and varied; stuffed with clippings and maps and drawings and perfect, frighteningly cold descriptions of pain and death and destruction. Anyone who might have found it would certainly think him mad, but no more than he himself did.  


He never ran out of gas. He never ran out of bullets. He never ran out of resolve. Not when he had a picture of those two things he lived for, taped to the dashboard. They were why he did this. Why he killed and fought and learned and wrote it all down in a journal that, in a dream world, he would one day pass on to another hunter.  


And on the twenty-third anniversary of that day, in the quiet of twilight, he stood with them--his family--and showed them everything. Every note, every thought, every moment of twenty-three years of struggle was there in that journal. And it was theirs now, for what good it would do them.  


He was ready, and so was the enemy. Years of cat-and-mouse came down to one huge showdown tonight. The demon had taken what couldn't be replaced, and he would claim his payback in blood.  


A stronger, deadlier weapon lay heavy in his hand, waiting for a target, and he showed it to them, explaining why this time, it would be enough.  


And then Dean Winchester touched each gravestone as if it were a talisman: Mary, John, Sam.... His family. Mom had been dead long enough to be memory, but twenty-three years wasn't enough to clear his mind of the vision of Sam, barely breathing, firing the shot that ended their father's life. Though maybe Dad had been dead before the bullet struck. Maybe the only thing keeping him moving had been the demon. The demon that made his father do things that still scarred Dean's body and say things that had burned out parts of his mind. The enemy survived where father and brother hadn't, and Dean continued the real family business--to find a way to finally kill the bastard who had torn them apart.  


And now it would be over. He touched John's gravestone again, caressing the cold marble. Now he understood. Twenty-three years ago, he'd been so angry that Dad was more than willing to throw his life away--and terrified that Sam had been the same. But now...  


There were things worth dying for. There were things you couldn't stand to live beyond. Once, he had thought he couldn't stand to live without his family, but Dad had taught him by example that sometimes, you only needed two things to live for.  


And when they were gone, sometimes revenge was as good a substitute as any.  


He laid his journal on the ground before Sam's headstone, laid a palm on the name of his cherished brother, carved in stone. He didn't bother to talk to him--Sam hadn't answered him in years.  


Dean climbed into the old, well-cared-for truck that had once been his father's, stared long and hard at the pictures of Sam and Dad that graced his dashboard, and headed out to finish a battle forty-six years in the making.  


And then they could be a family again.  


The way it was.  


* * * * * * *  
The End  



End file.
